Diana Wichtel: Confessions of a blog addict

COMMENT

Might as well face it: I'm addicted to blogs. Already in denial about the amount of time I spend watching reality television and listening to talkback (only when I'm cleaning the toilet or walking the dog - honest) I have to accept that I have a problem. Call Betty Ford.

Not so long ago I didn't even know what a weblog was. I'm still not entirely clear. But in my limited if slightly obsessive experience most blogs seem to be personal or non-commercial sites that use an often-updated log format, with lots of links to other sites and blogs.

For instance, if I had a blog, a typical entry might read: "April 28 2004 - Deadline looming and so is a terminal case of writer's block. I'm in a severe state of procrastination."

If this was a real weblog, clicking on the underlined words would take you to a writer's block website - and to Creative Procrastination: "No elements of this site were produced while actual work was not being put off until tomorrow".

You can see the potential for major league time-wasting. These days everyone is blogging, from humorist Dave Barry to John Tamihere. At first there were two or three blogs I regularly visited. Now the habit has grown to where I've had to sign up to a blog website that organises my blog websites - bloglines.com, bless them.

This passion for recording the deadening minutiae of one's life and times isn't new. Back in the 17th century, Samuel Pepys was keeping his famous diary, recording such events as the Great Plague and the Great Fire of London. Pepys also recorded: "Home and so to bed, but much troubled with my nose, which was much swelled." It was only a matter of time before someone turned his diary into a blog - pepysdiary.com, and well worth a visit.

For a good local rant, we're spoiled for choice. Russell Brown's Public Address, a pioneer of the art form, is an award-winning site featuring a number of good contributors. Brown's own Hard News is a feverishly updated - how does he find the time? - must read, whether you agree with him or not. He annoys both lefties (GE) and conservatives (Iraq) so he must be doing something right.

Then there's the right wing and equally dedicated NZ Pundit. Typical post: "I'm not saying the US should just go in and raze Fallujah, but FFS get in there, clear out the more innocent-looking women and children, and THEN raze Fallujah. Weakness is never rewarded."

("FFS" is blogspeak for something rude. Parents of the text generation will be familiar with the language.)

Kiwi Pundit, No Right Turn, Propaganda News Network - whatever your place on the political spectrum, someone is out there in cyberspace, ranting on your behalf.

The more political blogs, free from the standards of fairness and decorum that mainstream journalists have at least to pretend to maintain, spend a lot of time slagging each other. A while back, Russell Brown mused innocently in his blog: "I saw some Iraqi teenage girls gathering before the march. I was struck by how much they had the look and the body language of any teenage girls; just with headscarves."

"Weakness is never rewarded." Arch enemy NZ Pundit was all over this unremarkable observation like fleas on a dog. So was born the Russell Brown Terzain Aporia Prose-Poetry Competition, inviting entrants to submit a prose-poem in the "three-line stanza perfected by Russell". The hilarious results include salvos from both pro and anti-Russell bards. Still, in a country that lacks the media variety available in the real world, blogs go at least some way towards providing a range of viewpoints and an opportunity for free and very frank discussion.

More and more journalists, you suspect, are sneaking a look. Worrying thought: will the bloggers' heady freedom to be tasteless, offensive and downright idiotic seep into the mainstream? Maybe it already has. That would explain Holmes' latest headline-grabbing radio gaffe. "Bag of lard" makes "cheeky darkie" sound almost affectionate.

And, of course, there has to be some money in a grassroots movement this catching. A lucrative book deal has been done with the highly popular call-girl blogger Belle de Jour. The fact that she could be fictional or, worse, a man, seems to be neither here nor there.

Blogs are no longer just the preserve of trainspotters and oddballs - www.johnkerryisadouchebagbutimvotingforhimanyway.com - though these remain the most entertaining. Last month several hundred inhabitants of the blogosphere gathered at Harvard University for a conference on matters blog.

Companies are beginning to use them to keep in touch with staff and to communicate more informally with customers. And the idealistic are hoping for some opportunities to spread free speech and international understanding via this "emergent bottom-up" medium.

Meanwhile, the less idealistic bloggers are happy just to bang on and attack each other. In a few cases, you suspect the outlet blogs provide could very well be all that's stopping them going postal with an AK47.

Looked at that way, we're doing a community service by reading them. I'm feeling better about my little problem already.